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has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 11th, 2012, 9:52 pm
by BornSticky
ya thats about it....
has anyone made a rear wind damper?
preferably carbon fibre.
like that comes stock on a 370z?

Re: has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 12th, 2012, 6:49 am
by youdirtyfox
I doubt it do you know how much those CF rear diffusers cost! :P

Re: has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 12th, 2012, 11:44 am
by Ryan
If you are talking about a diffuser....

youdirtyfox is right. You can't just throw some crap together and expect it to work. A proper engineered diffuser (one that will actually work) is worth a lot of money.

But, with basic knowledge, you could be successful making your own.

Watch all of these related videos: http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf.html

Start with modeling your car. Just get the overall shape. Dimensions and large features only, (no need to worry about body seams)

Design the approximate shape around the mounting points you have. It should look like a bent up piece of plywood with vertical fins. There should be an inflection point in the curve.

Run a flow simulation on it. The effectiveness is limited because you cannot specify rotating tires or a moving ground plane (in the software I know of) but you can watch if your flow obviously separates from your curvature. (solidworks has a decent sim, ansys kicks a-- but your computer probably can't run it)

Iterate.

Once you get something that looks good in a sim, go buy 10 odd sheets of that blue polystyrene foamboard.

Glue them all together so they are in the rough shape of your diffuser. Cut it out, likely by hand unless you have a big a-- CNC mill. Apply body filler to make sure its smooth and straight.

Now you're going to have to source a lot of FG (or CF if you are extremely lucky, talk to wyt, he's probably looking) and lay her up. You probably don't have access to an autoclave so the epoxy you are forced use will cause it to have shitty properties. You also need a release agent (wood glue works for low temp cures)

The other option is just modeling it, and then making it out of sheet aluminum. You can specify your model to be made of gauge ally, but make sure you check its weight properties before you proceed. If it weighs more than the downforce you create, redesign.


Have fun. In the end, you'll still wind up with a shitty product. No offence, you just don't have access to the tools you need.

Re: has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 12th, 2012, 1:08 pm
by Mooneggs
Some of the mx-3 guys in atlanta were working on creating a rear diffuser a couple years ago... not sure how far they got.

I agree with Ryan though, it takes a ton of R+D which includes having the right equipment...

Re: has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 13th, 2012, 2:13 pm
by Josh
Ouch Ryan!..

@ OP

If you were to design one properly for the vehicle you would do what Ryan says.

But there are many out there for other cars that you can adapt over and make work. Would not be correct for the flow of the chassis but you would have some functionality and the look. Best bet, take some measurements off of your car and find something that is within specs that you can adapt. There are a couple generic rear diffusers out there (abs, and CF) that you could use, they are like one size fits all, I have seen them on many 2nd 3rd gen gen rx7's. I would look for something for a FWD car roughly the same size as the MX like a RSX.

Even then they are not cheep, you would be looking at 300 to 400 for an ABS or fiberglass diffuser or 600 to over a grand for a nice CF one. The one I had bought for my RX8 listed for 1200.

Ryan. I prefer a redneck wind tunnel. It consists of a portable garage, a good old fashioned leaf blower, and a Pack of smokes... lol

Image

*Facepalm*

Re: has anyone made a rear wind damper?

Posted: February 14th, 2012, 9:15 am
by ethand
Bahahahahahahaaahahaha!!!! That photo.... :laugh: :laugh: